Mexico City: The Free Uniting of Two People

Mexico City becomes the first region in Latin America to approve gay marriage.

With a vote of 39-to-20, legislators in the capital approved a bill that will make Mexico City the first city in Latin America to approve gay marriage – angering the Catholic Church and politicians from the nation´s conservative ruling party.

And,

Members of Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s National Action Party (PAN) have said they will fight the measure in court, as has happened in the US. The bill follows other controversial moves in left-leaning Mexico City, which also legalized abortion in a woman´s first trimester of pregnancy.

But it also comes as deeply Catholic Latin America has increasingly embraced gay rights, once taboo. Buenos Aires became the first city in the region to legalize civil unions when it did so in 2002. Other cities in Mexico and Brazil have followed. Uruguay has done so nationwide. But no place in Latin America currently allows gay marriage.